


speaking sound

by partingxshot



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Cybernetics, Cyborgs, Drax Cooks, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partingxshot/pseuds/partingxshot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t condescend to him by explaining what he already understands, instead jumping to the first possible solution. “Do you know how to reactivate your vocal processors?”</p><p>He shakes his head, dazed, and feels that he’s failed something.</p><p>Gamora’s dress makes shifting sounds as she crosses her arms. Then she earns his pathetic, eternal gratitude by asking, “How long will it take you to learn?”</p><p>(Written for the kink meme. Rocket loses his voice.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	speaking sound

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was as follows: "At some point, Rocket is either injured or loses his voice by other means, leaving him mute. (Muteness can be temporary or permanent.) This terrifies him because he uses his voice as a badge of his higher intelligence. It's what makes him distinctly separate from an animal, easily and quickly for anyone who comes across him. It's his first best defense and offense to protecting his identity.
> 
> And now it's gone.
> 
> Mostly, I'd like to see the rest of the team realizing how much this upsets him, and why. And then taking steps to re-confirm, always, that Rocket hasn't changed in their eyes. I don't care how, whether it's a private thing between them or they end up making a point of it in front of other people, but yeah. <3"
> 
>  
> 
> Contains brief and non-explicit mentions of medical experimentation.

There is no warning. Peter sees him go down out of the corner of his eye.

It’s like a blaze of glory, except the blaze is a point-black shot to the back with a stun gun set to what looks like a rudely high voltage in the middle of a near-deserted hallway.

It runs bright lines along Peter’s vision and over Rocket’s fur and across his blown pupils, his head thrown back and his fists clenched tight in a current that makes it impossible to let go.

Peter’s gut lurches. That happens when you watch your teammates go down, even if you know, logically, that they will not die.

Rocket hits the ground and the insanely large gun on his back makes a louder thud than he does in the sudden silence.

After that the Guardians get a little busy, because come _on,_ even if your “research station” is secretly a front for an interstellar drug cartel and the saviors of the galaxy are about to accidentally discover this by getting hopelessly lost on their way back to the hanger, you _don’t_ start the inevitable battle by shooting one of them in the back with a tinker toy. That’s just stupid. That’s just bad form. Especially when all your good weapons are hidden in the back anyway.

Groot, of course, is furious. Peter’s always weirdly happy to see that.

The rest of their day goes off more or less without a hitch, in a predictable medley of gunfire and explosions and very angry diplomats whose calls to the freshly-commandeered station get studiously ignored. So maybe the original mission didn’t go as planned, and _maybe_ they’ve pissed off a drug cartel, but Peter’s been in hotter water before so he considers this practically a win.

 _Essentially_ a win. In the broad scheme of things.

When they finally find the hanger where they left the ship, Groot’s knee a bit hacked up and Drax sporting a large gash over the ear, Peter notices that Gamora is the one carrying Rocket. Groot sticks close, but doesn’t object. It’s hard to tell with him, but he seems tenser than usual. 

He sees Gamora’s hand move to cup Rocket’s head. Then she very deliberately makes and keeps eye contact with Peter. Like she’s forbidding him to look at his unconscious companion again.

 Which is weird.

(Peter sees him go down, but Gamora _watches._ She remembers, though no one asks her to, exactly where metal spikes through fur, and she remembers the anatomy of a nervous system, and she remembers unwelcome currents and knives and sudden losses of control, like overloading a fuse, like being a thick thing of meat coating a thousand tiny switches.)

 

 

Quill is saying words at him. 

Rocket’s headache is murderous, chasing him into wakefulness and throbbing at odd tempos beneath his skull. He’s no stranger to pain, and this is a very specific just-got-slapped-with-more-volts-than-is-probably-healthy pain and it is _not_ nor has it _ever been_ his friend.

He seems to be lying on his bunk, so the others probably consider their thoughtfulness quota filled for the day. He flexes his fingers experimentally—everything seems alright there. So far.

Once he has a decent handle on his thought processes, he wants to chase everybody out and pull himself together in peace. Unfortunately, Quill is hovering over his prone body, and he keeps making _noises_.

“Do you want, like, an aspirin? Or something? Honestly I’m not totally sure what all’d work, with the whole, uh. You’re fuzzy.”

Groot is peering down through the doorway, and Drax is sitting on the bunk opposite.

And then Rocket is very, very suddenly aware of Quill’s fingers pressing tentatively against his shoulder.

With instincts born of years fending off curious hands, Rocket pushes at his arm, snarls _don’t touch me—_

He opens his mouth and the words don’t come out.

Nothing happens. The words don’t come out.

He sits up in a hurry, hand flying to his throat.

“My friend, are you well?” Drax asks.

He gapes like a fish, trying to push something through the veil of heavy _nothingness_ resting on his tongue. 

Quill is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. 

He feels the adrenaline spike in a series of chills down his spine.

His pulse starts hammering and he thinks to himself, _do not go crazy,_ it’s okay, you don’t know what this is yet.

You don’t know what this is. That’s the worst part. That’s what’s awful, that’s what’s wrong, shit—

“Whoa! Whoa, buddy, calm down. You’re—okay, you’re really digging in there, wow.”

Rocket realizes: while one hand has moved to clench his own neck like he can rip the problem out through his skin, the other hasn’t managed to let go of Quill’s wrist. Digging tighter, like he’s being shocked all over again and he can’t let go.

Then Groot is fully in the little bunk room, a feat on a good day and especially hard when he’s all angry worried limbs flailing everywhere, haha, limbs, that’s kind of a pun except it’s completely one hundred percent literal—

He doesn’t realize he’s panicking until Groot’s huge hand is there, blocking out his vision, not touching his fur.

In the dark, Rocket knows this routine. He concentrates on the solidity in front of him, leaving out the rest—Gamora’s concerned voice in the corridor, the way Quill twists his wrist uncomfortably under Rocket’s claws, the sound of his own ragged breathing and a heart racing hard enough to make him think he’s choking.

They’ve done this in the past. He doesn’t remember how they first realized it would help.

In the dark, Rocket knows how to start thinking again.

He uses the first iota of self-control he has to let go of Quill’s arm. Tries not to notice how quickly it’s pulled from his reach.

Deep breaths, now. Handle it. You can’t afford to lose control, so _handle it._

He tries to let Groot know when he’s better. The words form, crystal clear and burning, at the forefront of his mind. He can almost imagine his own voice saying them, to the extent that he knows his own voice (and oh, he _knows_ it—remembers three days in hiding, trying not to touch the searing burning twisted piece of flesh where the tracer used to be lodged in his shoulder, staring at a broken bit of mirror and watching his muzzle—his _mouth—_ form the vocabulary that had been his unwanted gift. Knowing that no matter which way he contorts his face, the image will not be right).

 _I’m okay._ The words are so simple. He reaches out to grab them and misses.

His mouth moves. A low snarl escapes like white noise. Nothing else happens.

Everyone is so quiet behind the dark, safe closeness of Groot’s hand. Everyone is quiet and Rocket is ashamed.

 _Handle it,_ he tells himself, sharply and without pity.

He pushes Groot’s hand away.

Quill’s face is too close, mouth barely open with something resembling panic. Rocket waves a hand as dismissively as he is able, and points to his own throat.

Groot’s limbs creak anxiously. Drax has also moved to his side—and really, don’t these idiots know to not _crowd_ somebody who’s just gone through this shit?

“I don’t understand,” Quill says, the words uncharacteristically slow and clear. Rocket wants to yell at him for treating him like a baby, but he _can’t_ right now and there seem to be remnants—no, _icebergs_ of adrenaline still shooting through him, sending shivers down his spine and making his fingers shake and clutch.

If he had something to _clutch—_

Gamora says something from the doorway that Rocket doesn’t quite catch. Her tone is calm and decisive, and three heads turn towards her.

(Rocket would listen too, because Gamora’s just as unfriendly and fucked up as the rest of them, but at least she knows what she’s talking about and he wants someone to _understand,_ but his thoughts are getting jumbled and his gaze, once dropped to his sheets, is startlingly difficult to raise again.)

It gets worse from there, for a little while.

A conversation happens. Rocket can’t fathom the words into sentences anymore, which should be more distressing than it is, but he’s busy being distressed about everything else. 

He feels a tendril winding its way around his hand, then stretching out to curl out around his shoulders. He leans into the growing solidity lacing its way across his back and thinks _how the hell will I ever make everything up to him_ as his vision starts to blur.

“Rocket,” Gamora says. The sound is like a precision blade: enough to make an incision in the haze without letting much else pass though. She doesn’t condescend to him by explaining what he already understands, instead jumping to the first possible solution. “Do you know how to reactivate your vocal processors?”

It’s not a demand, but it sends a guilty sting through him anyway. He’s tried to learn every inch of himself, but no one can predict everything that could possibly go wrong in a half-finished machine without a manual. And not many can conduct surgery on their own body.

(At least, not at all angles. He shouldn’t know this.)

He shakes his head, dazed, and feels that he’s failed something.

Gamora’s dress makes shifting sounds as she crosses her arms. Then she earns his pathetic, _eternal_ gratitude by asking, “How long will it take you to learn?”

 

 

He’s set up in his usual corner, three portable computer screens and a whole lot of threatening metal littered on the floor around him. Some of the pieces look like prototypes of things Gamora has watched men place under her own skin. 

She approaches him quietly, hands clasped behind her back. One of the screens displays an outline of his body, red and green diagrams lit up inside—she recognizes the function of many of the parts, but not all of them. A few regions are left dark, with notes that end in question marks alongside.

She rephrases the question she was about to ask into one that requires only a nod.

“Is Groot in the back?”

Rocket nods, then reaches for a tablet. He one-handedly types something in with impressive speed, and the words “HE WAS HOVERING” flash in cold blue on the screen.

Gamora feels a bit stupid. She should have realized that they would not have settled for playing charades.

“How can I help?” she asks, and sits down cross-legged beside him.

Rocket tenses slightly at her sudden proximity, not looking up. There is a part of her that wants to tell him that he is being stupid; he’s obviously embarrassed about his panic back in the bunk room, as though it’s not something that even the most hardened fighter would face when confronted by a sucker punch like this one. The wiser part of her, however, recognizes that this will not help them move forward. Maybe the best answer is to give Rocket his space.

But then Rocket shoos her with his hand, still not breaking the rhythm of his research on the central screen, and her pride flares.

“You will not be able to perform these operations on yourself,” she tells him. “If you would rather seek out a specialist whom you trust”—she lingers on the last word, stressing her doubt—“we can take this ship wherever you need to go. Otherwise, you should instruct me.”

Rocket glares at her, which she isn’t sure is progress, but she presses forward. “Are these the only schematics you have of your enhancements?”

A second screen is running code, which is not her first language—in the field it’s more important to recognize, physically, which piece goes where. But she understands the importance of learning your own body from all angles.

Rocket seems to be weighing something. Then he sighs and begins typing.

THEY DIDN’T EXACTLY GIVE ME FREE RUN OF THE PLACE.

And Gamora knows immediately who he’s referring to. In her position, it was probably easier—the engineers may have been Thanos’ people, but she frightened them. Rocket had started out in a cage.

MY INFO WAS MOSTLY PIECED TOGETHER ON THE RUN. WHEN SOMETHING BROKE DOWN.

He hesitates, nails almost brushing the screen.

NOT ALL OF IT MAKES SENSE.

Gamora notices the way his back bows with the words and tries to understand why that is.

The diagram is a mess of red and green. With a glance at Rocket, she reaches out to touch the screen. Zooms in.

The green lines are all systems she understands: cerebral cortex stimulation, adjustments to the autonomic nervous system, spinal reinforcement.

The red are systems that double back on themselves. Sometimes they seem to accomplish things: enhanced vision, maybe, or a reflex jumpstart. Other times they seem to trail off into nowhere, or become such a jumbled mess that she can’t sort out what circuit leads where. Whole areas are blacked out in confusion.

And Gamora realizes: she was a system invented to fight. Rocket was a system invented to be invented.

Rocket won’t look at her. He’s fumbling with one of his prototypes (or models, or removed excess circuitry) and his hands can’t seem to still.

“I’ll help you,” Gamora says. “And one day, when part of me breaks, you will return the favor.”

There is a long, unfocused pause. Rocket’s nails rattle against the metal, and he swallows.

When he nods it seems to cost him something, but his back doesn’t hunch so much afterwards.

The bravest thing she does that day is take the machinery from his hands.

 

 

When Rocket finally approaches Peter again, it’s with a surly expression on his face.

“What’s up?” Peter asks, noting the way Gamora hovers inconspicuously at the other end of the room.

I NEED ANESTHETIC.

“Oh,” Peter says stupidly. He should’ve seen this coming. “So you’ve uh. Figured it all out?”

Rocket shakes his head vehemently, apparently annoyed with himself.

NO. I’M WORKING BLIND WITH SOME OF THESE SYSTEMS, AND I NEED TO SEE HOW THEY’RE WIRED.

Peter does his best to ignore the flush of creeping horror that spreads along his shoulder blades. “So like, _your_ systems? You’re gonna knock yourself out and—”

Rocket shakes his head again.

Peter whistles, long and low. Of course he would be conscious. Of course he wouldn’t pass that responsibility on to someone else. Probably he’ll set up some creepy video feed so he can see his skin being sliced apart as it happens.

Rocket’s expression dares him to object, so Peter says, “We could stop off a couple of stars over, but I think we’ll need something pretty heavy, yeah? So maybe we shouldn’t just wander into a marketplace and start asking around. I think a couple of us are still registered as wanted criminals around here? I forget. We can go back door, if you can wait long enough to get to a planet with that kinda market.”

Gamora and Rocket both nod. It occurs to Peter, then, that though Rocket frequently asks for supply runs, this is the first time it’s been for something other than machinery.

He wonders if Gamora had to make him ask. He doesn’t like that thought.

“Tell me what to do,” he says in a rush.

Rocket raises a bushy eyebrow at him.

“I mean, to help. I can get you anything else you want, or like. I know we’re a ways out from Xandar but  I can call Dey and get him to put together a—a science team, whatever you need—”

Rocket hasn’t stopped shaking his head since Peter opened his mouth. He types: I’M HANDLING IT, QUILL.

“You don’t have to, though!” he bursts out, and is startled to hear the level of conviction in his own voice. Like it’s an idea that’s been congealing in the back of his head, out of reach. “You’re going through some shit, and we’re here, so like—why don’t you let _us_ handle it for a change?”

Rocket looks furious about this suggestion, typing in earnest. Peter feels especially betrayed by the tight-lipped look Gamora is shooting him like he’s misunderstood something fundamental.

YOU THINK I CAN’T TAKE CARE OF MYSELF?

“No! That’s not it at all! Man, this is just what friends _do_ for each other!”

Rocket is attacking his tablet almost violently; from the angle he’s holding it Peter can see words forming and erasing themselves again. Most of them are misspelled to the point of incomprehensibility. Peter recognizes that Rocket’s hands are shaking with rage.

Finally he throws the machine—which, coincidentally, belongs to Peter. It makes an unhealthy clanging sound against the metal wall, then clatters to the ground.

“Hey, what the hell?! You can’t just go _feral_ on me because you’re upset!”

Rocket jerks back as though struck. Then his lips curl into a snarl.

He clenches his fists and his eyes are vivid, and glimmering with something that isn’t just light, and Peter thinks, _shit._

Rocket bares his teeth like every insult in the universe waits trapped behind them.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Looks around the room, gaze hesitating on the tablet, and makes a desperate, strangled noise. Then he spins on his heel and retreats to the bunk room.

“Rocket,” Peter calls after him. “Buddy, I didn’t—”

He gives up when the door slams. He turns to Gamora with some hesitation, knowing exactly which disapproving look he’ll be confronted with.

“I fucked up,” he says weakly. “Shit.”                                                                                         

 

 

In a few hours, Peter knocks on the door.

To his surprise Drax is sitting in the corner, watching him while sharpening a knife. This would concern Peter more if he didn’t know about Drax’s knife-sharpening habits. Still, it’s intimidating.

Groot has hunched his way into the room and onto Rocket’s bunk. There’s a furry bundle in his arms, pressed to his chest. Rocket’s eyes are closed and his breathing is even, though the fur mussed all over his head paints a picture of some distressed claws running their way through.

Peter isn’t used to Groot’s expression being difficult to read.

“I brought this,” he says stupidly, waving the tiny transfer drive. “It’s access to all the _Milano_ systems that you’d need more than a passcode to mess with.” He hesitates a moment, then makes a guess that Rocket is listening. “I know you’ve been wanting to take a look at the weapons system from the bottom level, because you think it’s shitty or whatever. So there’s that, even though you probably broke into everything already. Uh. This also…I put Awesome Mix Volumes 1 and 2 on it, except I know you hate most of the songs, so mostly it’s just Cherry Bomb twenty times in a row with a few breaks for songs with cool guitar riffs.”

He tosses the drive onto the bed and waits. Wonders if he’s managed to convey over the months they’ve been together exactly what that mix means to him, even gutted and rearranged for someone else’s ears.

The only sound is Drax’s knife. Then Rocket shifts his head just enough to put Peter in his line of sight and opens one eye.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Peter says without hesitation. “You know I’d never—that wasn’t cool. We all wanna help you, but we’d never think you were useless, or—or stupid. We just wanna help ‘cause you’re our friend. You’re my friend. Can we maybe…meet in the middle, or something?”

It’s not a half-bad speech, he thinks. Based on subtle smile growing on Groot’s face, he agrees.

There is a very quiet sigh, followed by what could be a sniff. Then Rocket nods, expression still prickly.

Peter grins from ear to ear. “Awesome,” he says. “Cool. Let’s throw a party.”

Rocket stares at him like he doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.

 

 

Against all reason, they throw a party. Gamora muddles her way through making something called “popcorn” as Peter and Drax argue about which movie they should be watching. Groot volunteers to help decorate, throwing streamers over furniture and across people’s heads.

It is, according to Gamora, on the fast track to becoming the stupidest party thrown in this quadrant, but it’s a _party._

Groot has never been invited to a party before, and he is quite excited.

Rocket, who has been forced away from his productivity corner, looks like he wants to complain about the streamers, especially when Groot tries to wrap one around his furry head. But to be fair, Groot decorated his own branches first, and Rocket looks very nice in sky blue.

The second time he tries to decorate Rocket he ends up with a handful of raccoon, claws ripping at the nice purple color Groot had wrapped around his own head. Rocket throws the shreds down onto Peter, who blows some of them at Drax as a calculated rebuttal to the argument that _Footloose_ is an incomprehensible movie and really doesn’t need to be shown for the fourth time on this ship.

Rocket sniggers; it’s a rasping, breathy sound. Groot feels light.

They don’t end up watching a movie for another hour. Instead, Groot pulls another box of streamers from the cache he’s found in storage—he’ll never tell where—and they all end up pitching them at each other until the room looks like a colorful explosion of paper spaghetti.

Then  they settle into the debris covering the raggedy futon and Peter pops _Footloose_ in, to more complaining than Groot thinks is really necessary—it’s a nice movie—and from then on it’s just popcorn and making up new dialog under dimmed lights.

Gamora has long since gotten over the disappointment of learning that Kevin Bacon is not the type of hero she was envisioning, and has adopted a particularly dry mode of criticism for subsequent viewings. Peter groans as though each barb towards the characters is an attack on his gentle heart.

Groot is pretty sure she loves this movie.

When Rocket starts laughing, it’s quiet. Groot feels the tame shudders against his side. Knowing his partner as well as he does, Groot would not be surprised if it’s the situation more than the bad jokes entertaining him. It’s such a _Peter_ thing to do, having a party at a time like this. And it’s such an _everyone else_ thing to do, going along with it. Everything is going wrong, so we throw a party. Everything is going wrong, so we dance.

The others notice Rocket’s good mood more slowly. Other than a few half-hidden smiles, they don’t react except to make their jokes stupider than ever.

Sometimes, when Groot is near these people, his every twig feels filled with universal good feeling. Like warmth radiating from an alien star.

After the movie they talk. The conversation is light, and runs in inane little circles that don’t mean very much. Soon everyone is asleep at uncomfortable angles on or against the futon, and Groot sinks into the half-awake space that he likes to inhabit before sliding totally into unconsciousness.

 

 

Rocket wakes in a panic, gasping with some awful half-remembered dream in which people were speaking to him and he didn’t understand.

And he can’t cry out, and it feels like nothing this terrible has happened before.

He can’t bring anything into focus except for the dim lights on the ceiling, and even they are spinning, and he can’t stop the choked little noises rising up from the back of this throat, and there are long paper things holding him down.

There’s a blur, and a sound—

“Go to sleep, Rocket,” someone says, and he understands the words.

Someone else moves a hand along his head in long, gentle strokes. It only takes a moment to banish the shameful urge to bite. The hand follows a rhythm, slow.

“It’s okay,” someone says, and another voice repeats the message. The glow of the screen is low and soft.

He makes the noise again, because he can’t help it. But the hand doesn’t leave, and the voices go back to speaking—to him, to each other, conversation running in inane little circles that don’t mean very much.

It takes some time for his breathing to return to baseline, but the voices do not falter.

Rocket falls into sleep.

 

 

Drax does not specialize in communication.

This seems especially obvious when he talks to aliens. Something about the way they process language is fundamentally different to him, and strange.

Which is why, at times, he finds himself enjoying Groot’s company more than the others. Groot conveys so much of himself through body language that to Drax their conversations feel refreshingly forthright. He doesn’t _need_ to understand illogical, convoluted speaking styles, because there are only three words and a thousand types of tone. _Clear_ tones, not the wildly misleading ways Quill speaks when he is “joking,” nor the subtle jabs that he is certain he misses in every other word out of Gamora’s mouth. 

Nor the flailing, impossible-to-follow way that Rocket speaks, abusing violent metaphor to the point of incomprehensibility, with no hints given in the voice itself, deadpan until it’s vicious with few layers in between.

Rocket once said that Groot “wears his heart on his sleeve.” Drax did not understand, given that Groot has never worn clothing, but he took the time to try and puzzle it out to himself and came up with an explanation that satisfied him: Peter tells him that the “heart” can refer to the emotional center. Rocket is frequently perched on Groot’s shoulder. Relatively straightforward, for Rocket.

The problem, he reasons as he watches the two of them open and close cabinets in the pitiful excuse for a mess hall (Quill calls it a “kitchenette”), is that Rocket doesn’t know how to throw his entire body into his communication. The tablet lies on the table, forgotten amidst the difficulty of directing Groot through a complex process.

Groot knocks two pots to the ground in his attempt to reach for the big pot in back, comically bent over to reach the low cabinet door. Rocket gesticulates wildly, slapping Groot’s arm until he has his attention. Then he points, furiously, at a higher cabinet. Groot frowns, then complies.

He rummages around in the next one, pausing occasionally to look down at his partner quizzically. Rocket runs an exasperated claw up the fur on his forehead, and Drax is struck by how _tired_ the characteristic gesture looks. Rocket clambers up on Groot until he’s clinging to his front on the cabinet’s level. He jumps in and pulls out a skillet, waving it reproachfully. Groot’s face registers comprehension, and he nods.

Rocket jumps down to the stove top, slamming the skillet onto the surface.

“You are aware that it’s Quill’s turn to prepare our evening meal?” Drax asks.

Rocket shoots him an exasperated look and nods like Drax has missed the point. Then, still standing on the counter, he plucks a spatula from its holder and tries to direct Groot in pouring oil in the skillet.

Drax has experienced many home cooked meals. He also knows that, objectively, he is the best cook on the ship, and Rocket’s idea of cuisine in particular leaves something to be desired. Yet this hasn’t stopped Rocket from cooking his own meals, or Groot from hurrying to help provide them—in his own, eventual way—when Quill’s cooking is imminent.

Groot practically dumps the oil into the skillet, overflow splashing everywhere. Rocket throws his arms in the air and there is a high, loud, frustrated _whine._

After that the mood changes very quickly. All three of them stop moving for one awkward instant. The fur on Rocket’s back rises just slightly.

And the sound was so easy for Drax to understand—forthright, no room for misinterpretation, exasperation at its most basic (its most animal, he does his best not to think).

But Rocket likes words. Rocket likes the type of misdirection that is out of Drax’s reach, thrives on it, uses it as a weapon and a defense. And like this, without it, he doesn’t know what to do.

The claws lower again, slowly. Drax notices the way they shake just slightly, probably more out of exhaustion than anything (and really, it’s probably something important that Groot has convinced him to stop and _eat)._ Rocket’s bad temper is tainted by a self-conscious gruffness and the aversion of his eyes. Like he has committed some great sin by making this sound.

Groot clumsily begins to clean up his spill. Drax moves towards the counter.

“Perhaps we could avoid Quill’s cooking altogether,” he says, reaching for Rocket’s spatula.

Rocket gives him a suspicious look, holding onto the kitchen utensil like he holds onto his guns.

It is very important, Drax knows, to avoid displays of pity. He reaches past Rocket instead, plucking a ladle from its place on the counter.

“If you would like, I can teach you to make a dish from my home world.” He reaches into the lower cabinet, pulling out one of the small pots. “Like I taught my daughter.”

Rocket makes a vaguely offended sound at that last addition, crossing his arms and baring his teeth. Drax is perplexed by this, but he has long given up understanding why things he says in complete earnestness sometimes offend his friends.

“Do you object,” he asks, “to learning an art passed down through families?”

Just as incomprehensibly, Rocket’s expression loses some of its hardness to be replaced by confusion. Groot is smiling over their shoulders.

Drax places the pot on the stove next to the incredibly well-oiled skillet. “First, you need fruit for the sauce. We do not have the same resources as on my planet, but we can settle for something fresh and sweet.”

He begins cutting up the fruit Groot found in the fridge (something Gamora bought, probably—she likes that sweetness). Drax hands Rocket a fruit and a knife and lets him get to it. Rocket complies with surprising quickness, and they work in silence. Out of the corner of his eye Drax can feel Rocket watching him, and he wonders what thoughts are passing through his head. He seems calmer now, if just as exhausted, and Drax assumes that somewhere in his blind conversational charge he has done something right.

“Watch carefully,” he tells Rocket occasionally as he constructs a sauce out of the piecemeal artifacts they have on hand. “This is complicated.”

Rocket huffs, clear as saying _I’m not an idiot, cooking’s for chumps anyway._ Drax only demonstrates for a second or two before handing each task off to Rocket, who maneuvers the kitchenware awkwardly at first but picks up quickly enough to be useful.

Drax isn’t lying. The dish is complicated. But Rocket can be trusted to handle it.

They invite Gamora to test the final product. They watch with bated breath as she raises the sweet and savory mess, drizzled over pan-seared meat, to her lips. Her eyes light up on the first taste.

Rocket suddenly grins wide, grabs his tablet, and races up Groot’s leg to perch on his shoulder. After a quick second the machine flashes the words “THAT WAS ALL ME” and Groot makes a sound like laughing.

They sit down to eat, Rocket actually listening as Drax explains slight variations on the dish (and occasionally interjecting by typing “better” ideas into his tablet). Gamora gets to her second serving before anyone else, because she loves this kind of taste. Quill had once said that this was strange for someone with her character—Drax hadn’t understood, because people who kill to survive should be allowed some sweetness to live.

When Quill walks into the kitchenette wearing his inexplicable “kiss the cook” apron, his face only falls for a moment. Groot is the one who beckons him to the table, long hand curling and uncurling with openness and ease.

Rocket grins at them both, hands spread flat and invested against the table. Drax thinks, _words._

 

 

Every time Rocket falls asleep in his corner, working long past the point where his tolerance snaps and he sends everyone else away in a clawing rage, he wakes up tucked into his bed. Every single time.

And he feels so, _so_ guilty, and he hopes they never stop.

 

 

Peter gets a contact of his to promise them the requested amount of anesthetic. It’s not something you’d expect to be so difficult, if you didn’t know a whole lot about the interstellar black market.

Also: being a wanted criminal, which apparently a lot of them still are on this side of space, makes it harder to walk into a public area and ask for a large volume of controlled substances.

It’s their best drinking game at this point: drink if Rocket’s wanted on general mayhem charges. Drink if Gamora’s taken out someone so shady that the report can’t even pinpoint who it was. Drink if a report struggles and fails to describe Groot.  Drink if Peter’s scavenged something unwise. Drink if Drax.

Rocket, of course, is coming with them. He keeps waiting for them to challenge him on this, but they don’t.

This particular node of questionable goods is located at the edge of the planet’s capital city, in a domed building that blends fairly inconspicuously into the brown shades of the surrounding architecture.

Peter’s contact doesn’t seem like much of a threat. He knows a wealth of these unimportant middle-men and deal-brokers that mostly look like jewelers who took a wrong turn in life. This one is tall and blue and brittle-looking. All the same, Rocket doesn’t relax—who could, when there’s the potential, however slim, that someone will figure out why they need what they need?

They’re handed a small box worth of bottles. Given the dosage, Rocket hopes it’ll take them ten years to use it all, but he knows better than to assume.

As they’re turning to walk out again, a brace of particularly well-muscled patrons walks in.

The one in front sees them and does what turns out to be the most dangerous double-take this side of Andromeda.

He stops walking, dumbfounded. It’s funny, almost: the way his men (or followers, or bodyguards) walk right into each other. Then he draws his (Rigelian-designed, big-ass) gun.

“Whoa, hey!” is Peter’s first reaction, coupled with hands raised in feigned innocence, because Peter is an idiot.

Rocket’s got his gun out in under a second, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Gamora doing the same with her knives. Ultimately it doesn’t matter _why_ someone’s got a weapon trained on them. They just do, and now it’s time to react.

“They’re the ones!” the big guy splutters. He’s got a goddamn neck tattoo, which looks especially bad on a guy with fins. “These are the bastards from the _Discoverer!”_

Peter manages to mouth “What the fuck—?” before Gamora pushes him to the side, just in time to avoid a burst of laser fire. Glass shatters in the window behind him. Their broker disappears almost instantly through a door behind the counter. Smart guy.

Everyone explodes into motion. Rocket doesn’t try to figure out why they’re being attacked, focusing instead on rebound and ricochet and the growth rate of Groot’s limbs. He’s not at his best in close quarters, but he’s damn good anyway.

Gamora is a swirl of hair and black and metal. Peter moves with that combination of wild improvisation and pre-memorized combo placement that makes him a bitch to predict and defeat. Drax is a juggernaut, which presents problems in confined spaces—Peter barely ducks in time to avoid a flying pile drive aimed at the guy behind him. Fucking Drax.

Given the team’s positioning, Rocket may be the only one to see finhead barge through the door behind the counter, probably ready to take advantage of the chaos to grab whatever he can before any security systems really kick in.  And Peter’s _so_ hung up on civilian casualties, and it’s never good to let a well-placed contact get offed, so Rocket is the one who follows. He can’t fight at full strength here anyway. Not with the gun he’s holding.

Rocket shoulders the door halfway open and presses his back against the surface, trying to watch where he’s going and not get shot in the back at the same time.

In front of him is a dim hallway, empty aside from a few boxes set on carts for future sorting. The doors are all closed and, given their contents, presumably locked.

In one firm motion he pushes the door all the way open, dives inside, and slams it shut behind him. He’s ready for the sudden view of an attacker, but there’s nothing—that leaves finhead lurking behind the boxes, waiting in the sudden stillness (at odds with the riot-sounds behind them).

Rocket moves forward slowly, and grins.

He wants to say _Here, fishy_ under his breath, more for effect than anything else. He holds his weapon out and ready, because any minute now—

There is no warning. This time, no one sees Rocket goes down.

 

—a blaze of glory, except the blaze is a current running through him with a rudely high voltage in the middle of a near-deserted hallway—

 

—lines along his vision and over his fur and—

 

 —head thrown back and his fists clenched tight in a current that—

 

Rocket hits the ground and his gun makes a louder thud than he does in the sudden silence.

His brain switches off for a moment. Then, worse: he comes back online with no body.

Floating, disconnected from any sense of spine or hands or claws or teeth. The—

 

—anything into focus except for the dim lights on the ceiling, and even they are spinning, and he can’t stop the choked—

 

—can’t cry out, and it feels like nothing this terrible—

 

—can handle it, I’m—

 

 

 

 

Gamora knows the sensation of a shorted-out system, coupled with the pain of a high-voltage current running through flesh. She lies on the floor and wills the feeling to come back into her hands.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Drax moving, trying to pull himself off the ground. He will be the first to recover. She knows this intimately, as she knows all of the strengths of her teammates. Perhaps their opponents will recuperate nearly as quickly, but no one can match Drax for sheer stubborn pigheadedness.

She thinks she can see Peter’s coat edging into her field of vision, bright on the ground next to some part of Groot.

That sends her sluggish brain for a loop: why is Groot down, Groot shouldn’t conduct a charge—

Except of course he does. Groot is more than wood, he is water and green cells like neurons electric. He is alive, in the way that all growing things are alive, and he is wet enough to suffer for it.

So their contact has a security system after all. All he has to do is get into some protected room and flip a switch, and everyone in the area is immobilized long enough for backup to arrive. Hypothetically.

Gamora, given her cybernetics, will probably be down for longer than the rest. The feeling starts coming back into her extremities. Every muscle is burning, every nerve ending sending confused pain responses back up her spine.

It’s agony, but she has lived through far worse.

At least her cybernetics are built to be efficient and will restart in shorter order. For someone like Rocket—

The adrenaline jolting through her has nothing to do with electricity now.

 _Rocket,_ she wants to cry out. _Where is Rocket._

 

 

 

 

—a goddamn neck tattoo, hovering, staggering, and he moves forward slowly—

 

—I’m handling it, Quill—

 

—moves forward slowly, a goddamn neck—

 

and grins, blocking out the dim lights

 

and even they are spinning

 

grins

 

 

 

 

Her lips will not move. It’s torture to try.

A noise tears itself out from behind them, ill-formed.

 

 

 

 

handle it.

 

 

 

 

Saliva draws lines down her cheek. She stares at her own hands, clenched in front of her. Her body is fetal.

She parts her lips and her body screams.

 _“Drax,”_ she gasps. “ _Rocket.”_

Drax hears her speak. She knows this, because with his own incoherent cry he’s ripped himself the rest of the way off the ground, like tearing off the bandage in one go.

 

 

Rocket thinks he is shouting. This is not possible, because he doesn’t know the words anymore. But he thinks he is shouting, because they need to _hear him._

He’s been lifted from the floor, and his body aches. Something is cradling him, except it’s pointing a gun at his head.

They’ll hear me, he thinks.

Then gravity revolts and he’s tumbling back to the ground, his attacker thrown down by another huge body, two monsters duking it out far, far above him.

This goes on for an eternity. Even the dim lights on the ceiling are spinning.

One of the figures settles itself into Drax’s outline, and Rocket finds that strange. Drax hadn’t been the one attacked, and yet here he is.

Rocket is handling it. He handles it by watching Drax take down a guy with gills and a neck tattoo.

And he doesn’t have the words to describe anything anymore, but _Drax_ is the one handling this and it isn’t long before Peter’s hovering again, concern in the lines of his mouth as it forms Rocket’s name, and it doesn’t feel _wrong._

It doesn’t feel wrong.

It takes some time for his breathing to return to baseline, but the voices do not falter.

Rocket falls into sleep.

 

 

They beat back the thugs. They remember, after an impromptu brainstorming session, that the _Discoverer_ is the name of a research station. They decide not to wreck any more inhospitable drug cartel drop points without careful planning. They gather up Rocket and Gamora. They survive.

Groot has made an unwilling memory. The sound of Rocket screaming is unpleasant in any case, but it’s worse to know that he hates the animal noises he makes without his enhancements and will do anything to restrain them. To scream, then, reveals a level of distress that hurts Groot to contemplate.

The first thing he asks when they are alone in the bunk room, after Rocket has been brought to consciousness and thoroughly checked out and examined and (to be honest) fawned over, is whether he had been tortured.

Rocket snorts and shakes his head. His expression is still vaguely bewildered, has been that way ever since he woke up to four concerned friends all trying to help and comfort him at once.

He types something into his tablet, his fingers only trembling from the general drain he had described to the others. So far, nothing seems amiss (more than the usual, that is).

I DON’T REMEMBER A LOT. I NEEDED

He hesitates, tail twitching against his bunk. Groot watches very carefully as he erases the words and tries again.

I MADE YOU ALL HEAR ME. SO IT’S FINE.

Groot places a gentle hand on Rocket’s shoulder; Rocket leans in towards him.

Not so much of a scream, perhaps. Groot feels a bit lighter.

Rocket looks like he wants to input something else, flexing and clenching his fingers. Groot waits.

I HANDLED IT, he finally writes, and Groot knows he’s not referring to the man with the gun to his head. Sometimes there are more subtle, internal thing that need taking care of. Roadblocks to speech that are not so wrapped up in wires.

Groot smiles and allows a few more leaves to uncurl.

 

 

After a few days of recuperation, the team deems Rocket recovered enough to perform the exploratory operation.

Rocket grumbles about them having any say in the decision at all, but there is a traitorous part of him, growing louder by the day, that wants to remind him that it doesn’t feel _wrong_ for them to help make this choice.

Gamora listens patiently to all of his last-minute instructions, even the ones he’s already insisted on a thousand times over. She understands this process, and he knows that she understands, but he still feels better making sure he has a say. Maybe if he’s explained the function of each shining device he won’t have to deal with that queasy sensation that comes to him unbidden when they approach his skin.

She seems to understand this, too.

They set up the cameras, ignoring Peter’s frequent, unsubtle flinches. He’s been hovering, not able to help but not willing to leave them alone. Honestly, sometimes he’s as bad as Groot.

(It doesn’t feel wrong.)

DON’T BE A BABY, Rocket types.

“I’m _not_ being a baby!” Peter protests, fiddling with a few random wires that he probably shouldn’t be touching in any case.

Rocket just points to the tablet again, and Peter scowls.

“I am Groot,” Groot reassures them. Rocket nods along.

 _"Anyway,”_ Peter says, looking suspiciously between the two of them, “Lemme know if you need anything from me.”

DON’T FAINT, Rocket tells him.

A look of surprise registers on Peter’s face, and Rocket has to scramble to figure out if he’s said anything strange.

“Uh. Sure. Like I would pass out at the sight of a little blood, anyway,” Peter says. “By the way, how deep are you cutting? Like, is this just sort of a surface-level, peel-back-the-skin sort of…” his face contorts as he tries to wrangle the words into something un-gross enough to handle. Rocket smirks cruelly.

GUESS YOU GOTTA WAIT AND SEE.

Peter grins in return, tentative and strange.                                                                                                  

It takes Rocket another hour to figure out what had surprised Peter. He realizes it as Gamora is carefully positioning his body on their makeshift operating table, bare back vulnerable for the first time in—in a long time.

The rest of his team is hovering at the edges of his vision. Drax’s presence is solid, standing in the corner nearest the cockpit. He can hear Peter pacing, and Groot’s every gentle creak. He hadn’t expected them to stay.

Well. He supposes “don’t faint” was an invitation. Tentative and strange.

Gamora doesn’t exactly hesitate before grabbing the restraints. But she does move slowly enough for Rocket to react if he chooses.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out again. To his frustration, the airstream shakes. His claws dig into the soft padding of the table.

“Rocket,” she says.

He takes another breath. And another, because third time’s the charm. None of the breaths are perfectly even, and none of them make the trembling ball at the center of his chest lay down quietly.

The whole room is silent, waiting for his okay. Suddenly he isn’t sure if he can give it.

Then Peter says, “We’re gonna handle it, buddy.”

Groot echoes: “I am Groot.”

And Rocket closes his eyes. Relaxes his muscles. Nods.

It’s going to be hell, but at least he won’t be there alone.

 

 

Kevin Bacon dances in a large factory like he’s got demons on his tail. No one is impressed.

"I still do not understand the point of this scene,” Gamora says.

“God, you say that every time,” Peter whines. “Listen, it’s a very emotional moment—”

“Why?” Drax asks, face set into his permanent Kevin Bacon’s Antics Frown. “Kevin Bacon is accomplishing nothing of relevance. His actions are related to his goals, but unproductive.”

“What? Drax, you of all people should _not_ be the one talking here.”

“I do not understand what you mean.”

“Oh my god, you _murder_ people.”

“Relevant people.”

“Murder is a harsh term,” Gamora muses. “Also, could someone move down? I am pressed up to the edge of this silly little piece of furniture.”

“Okay, now I _know_ you two are messing with me on purpose. I know you’re ganging up on me. _Ow!”_

“‘Ganging up’ is fair play,” Gamora says, “when we are confronted with your behavior every time this movie is discussed. Also: I asked you to move down.”

“I am Groot,” Groot says, and reaches out one long arm to pull Peter further from Gamora.

“What? Groot, not you too! Rocket, back me up here.”

Four heads turn to look at Rocket. He sits with his feet curled up beneath him, wedged between Groot and Drax, his back carefully not touching the fabric of the futon behind him. He types:

QUILL, WE WATCH THIS DAMN MOVIE TOO MUCH.

Peter opens his mouth to complain, but instantly shuts it again when he sees Rocket has more to say.

BUT HELL, WE’RE THE IDIOTS STILL SITTING HERE.

That gets a smile out of Peter and a vaguely offended noise from Gamora.

“It’s because you’re all in love with Kevin Bacon,” Peter proclaims. “Don’t fight it. _I’m_ in love with Kevin Bacon. Gamora is also in love with Kevin Bacon. It’s a real wedge in our relationship.”

Gamora smacks him upside the head. Rocket laughs, the sound escaping him in little hisses (and that’s fine).

He now knows more about his makeshift anatomy than he did before, at least in a few specialized regions along his spinal column; his central language processor lies untouched in his actual brain and will require a lot more careful planning to get to.

Some pieces of him are still near-indecipherable, and others very clearly do more harm than good. There’s a few systems that Rocket wants to reinvent altogether, once he’s built up a body of research (and time, and nerve).

They’re close to figuring out a solution for his vocal issues, but it’s obvious that the system is weak there. They’ll need replacement parts, and specialists of both the highly-decorated and back-alley variety. Rocket despises specialists, but at least in Gamora he has one of his own to watch his back—in the literal sense.

All in all, it’s going to take some time. And there is no guarantee that their solution will be permanent. Really, he just has to keep looking.

It could be worse, he thinks as he watches Peter and Groot swaying in time to Kevin Bacon’s breakdown music, Gamora pulled along for the ride. They’ve been meeting him in the middle for this long.

And here is the miracle: they don’t seem tired of him yet.

“Do you understand this film?” Drax asks. His arm touches Rocket’s shoulder.

NOT AT ALL, Rocket tells him.

It doesn’t feel wrong.

 

(When he drifts off to sleep in the crook of Groot’s arm, even the lights are spinning.) 


End file.
